Tarzan declares war on Germany. That could have been an alternate
title to this book as a good portion of it has Tarzan go all Rambo on
the invading German forces during World War I. This story was released
in serialized form as two separate stories in two different pulp
magazines; "Tarzan the Untamed" (AKA "Tarzan and the Huns") for Redbook Magazine in 1919, and as "Tarzan and the Valley of Luna"
in All-Story Weekly in 1920. This is a grimmer and more brutal Tarzan
than we have seen in the past books, and for a very good reason, his
wife is murdered. If one was to make a list of things not to do
I’m betting killing Jane, Tarzan’s most beloved wife, would probably
appear near the top. There are certainly easier ways of killing
yourself.
The book begins with a group of German soldiers, and
their native porters, approaching the Greystoke estate in British East
Africa. The “War to End all Wars” has broken out but unfortunately that
information had not yet reached Tarzan or Jane. Tarzan is away doing
Tarzan stuff so it is Jane who welcomes these Germans in with open arms.
Things do not go well. When Tarzan learns of the outbreak of war he
ditches his civilian garb and races across the land with the speed and
manner only Tarzan could accomplish, but he is too late. Much of the
estate is burned to the ground; he finds one of his most trusted Waziri
warriors crucified, but worst of all he finds the charred remains of
Jane. Tarzan declares a silent oath that the men responsible for this
will pay, and pay dearly.
The first half of the book is pretty
much all about a wrath filled Ape Man wreaking holy hell on the German
forces while he tries to locate the men directly responsible for the
atrocities he found at his home. He would grab a native porter for
interrogation, scarring the living crap out of him, and then once he has
gained what information he can get Tarzan would then crush the life out
of the man. One German officer is left stuck in a tree with a hungry
lion waiting for a meal, while others meet brutal if not as sadistic
ends. At one point Tarzan takes the aforementioned lion, which he has
leashed and beaten into submission, and forced him into the German
trenches. When the hapless German soldiers flee the trenches Tarzan is
there waiting for them, with a machine gun, and he rakes them with a
deadly hail of bullets.
His hunt for Captain Fritz Schneider runs
into a few snags when he learns that the Schneider he left for lion chow
in a tree was actually just the brother of the man who led the attack
on the Greystoke estate. His continued hunt for the correct Schneider
leads Tarzan to cross paths with Bertha Kircher, a woman he has seen in
both the German and British camps, and who he believes to be a German
spy. When Tarzan discovers that Kircher has in her possession his
mother's locket, which he had given as a gift to Jane, he is less than
impressed with her. He decides to take her back to British headquarters,
where he assumes that she will be executed for being a spy, but she
manages to escape. This is not one of Tarzan’s finer moments. He
basically told Bertha Kircher that he was going to personally escort her
to her doom. Yet for some unearthly reason he lets her walk behind
him, and with her still in possession of her gun. I know grief can make
you do stupid things but that is a bit ridiculous. The only reason she
doesn’t shoot him in the back of the head as she can’t bear the idea of
killing such a magnificent specimen of manhood. So she just coldcocks
him with the butt of her pistol.
It’s at this point that Tarzan
decides he has had about enough of civilization and will spend the
remainder of his days deep in the jungle, living as he did as a young
man, and far away from the supposed civilized world. What is strangely
never mentioned is anything to do with John Clayton, Tarzan and Jane’s
son. We know he went off to live with Miriam but wouldn’t it have been
nice of Tarzan to maybe send his kid a letter, “Dear Son, going back to live with the apes. PS Your mom is dead.”
I believe the death of Jane, and the lack of their son’s appearance in
this book, has more to do with Burroughs’ desire to have Tarzan free to
run off and have adventures than it is about his bestial nature. A tied
down Lord of the Jungle isn’t as fun as one that can rush off to
investigate the latest lost city.
And
this book does have a lost city. In the first six books we’ve only had a
couple of short visits to Opar, the lost outpost of Atlantis, but
following this book lost cities will become so numerous one will start
to question if there is enough jungle in Africa to hide them all. The
second half of the book has to do with Tarzan trying to make a life with
a new group of Apes, and maybe venturing to the coast and the cabin his
father built, but his attempt at ditching civilization is constantly
interrupted by the Bertha Kircher, the German spy. She is captured by
black deserters and Tarzan is forced to rescue her. He is complete and
utter hatred of her wars with his inability to leave a white woman in
danger. He even lets her live with him and the apes. Yeah, that’s swell
of him. Eventually another character enters the picture in the form of
downed British pilot Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick. One of the great
moments in the book consists of Tarzan and Percy about to be burnt at
the stake by a group of cannibals when Bertha leads a rescue attempt
consisting of the Great Apes. Tarzan repeated tells himself that he
hates Bertha with every fibre of his being, but he also can’t help but
acknowledge his growing respect for her.
Poor Percy falls almost
immediately in love with Bertha, even after Tarzan informs the British
aviator that she is a German spy, but Berth does not return his love,
she has eyes for another. You get three guesses as to who that person
is, and the first two don’t count. This is a sprawling epic with Tarzan
wiping out German soldiers, traveling desert wastes, battling cannibals,
befriending lions (two of them in this book), and of course he finds a
lost city. Only the inclusion of Bertha and Percy in the second half of
the book, which is mostly jungle adventure and lost city finding,
connects it to the first half, which is all about war and revenge.
As
I’ve mentioned this book does have a lost city, and it’s a doozy. The
lost city of Xuja, hidden in a secret desert valley, is populated by
inbred madmen who use lions for cattle and security, and worship parrots
and monkeys. Bertha and Percy are of course captured by Xujans so it is
up to Tarzan to stage another rescue. Will the Ape Man be able to sneak
into a city of madmen, can Percy win the love of Bertha, will Tarzan
actually desert civilization for good, and most importantly of all, “Is Jane really dead?”
Tarzan the Untamed
is bit lopsided at times and Tarzan constantly going on about how much
he hates the German’s gets a bit grating. He did write this during the
war so the anti-German sentiment is not surprising, but what he didn’t
quite take into account was how sales of his books in Germany were going
to suddenly plummet. I guess some people can’t handle being called
cowardly, vile, despicable and evil. I mean seriously, who could
possibly take that personally?
In the book The Beasts of Tarzan
Burroughs allowed us to spend more time with characters other than
Tarzan, and Tarzan the Untamed is really where that element of the
series kicks into high gear. Following the adventures of people like
Bertha and Percy bring a fresh to the story, and of course this allows
Burroughs to get in some fresh love interests as it’s hard to make that
work with a married Ape Man. Overall Tarzan the Untamed
is a fun if uneven story, but made a little extra awesome by having
Tarzan going on a rampage. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed.
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